20000215010689A

(-23) During a night operation involving a us custom a/c the a/c experienced a total engine failure. The crew was at 1000 ft AGL and had made an emergency landing on a dirt road. During the landing roll the wing hit a group of trees which slewed the a/c into a ditch then the a/c rolled over onto itsback. None of the people on board where injured. The cause of the engine failure was not traced to a failure of the engine crankshaft flyweights failing and causing internal failure of the engine. AD99-09-17 had been comlied with 200 hrs earlier to which the engine manufacturer required a inspection of the crankshafts more specifically the flyweight check for cracks. Two flyweight caps and circlips were found intact in the oil pan. One flyweight had lost one of its pins and had impacted the case which then tore the other flyweight pin out of a/c. (.4) on February 15, 2000, at 2024 hours mountain standard time, a Cessna T210M, N761KC, collided with ground obstructions and nosed over during a forced landing near elfrida, Arizona. The forced landing was precipitated by a catastrophic engine failure during cruise. The airplane was operated by th e department of the treasury, U.S. Customs service, as a public-use airplane under 14 CFR part 91 of the federal aviation regulations. The airplane sustained substantial damage. The two pilots, the sole occupants, were not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed and a company visual flight rules flight plan was filed. The flight originated from davis-monthan air force base, tucson, Arizona, at 1940 as a training flight. According to information provided by the U.S. Customs service and the pilots, the flight left the us customs tucson air operations base at davis-monthan afb for a training flight in the Douglas, Arizona, area. No discrepancies were noted with the run-up at davis-monthan afb or until the engine problem happened. The pilot said he was at 5,100 feet MSL and using a power setting of 30 inches of manifold pressure and 2,600 RPM. Both pilots heard a loud bang, like a hammer hitting the inside of the engine, which was followed by severe vibrations and sparks emanating from the front of the airplane. According to both crewmembers, the vibrations were constant; however, when the pilot powered back the vibrations seemed to intensify. The pilot reported that from the sparks he thought they might have lost a portion of a propeller blade and began looking for a place to land. They were over a highway running through a built up area, but the pilot considered that there was a likelihood of power lines over and around the highway. They saw a dirt road reflecting in the moon light and set up for a landing there. On short final to the road, the pilot had to maneuver to the left in order to miss a large tree on the right-hand side of the road. As the pilot maneuvered back to the center of the road, the right wing began to contact trees on the roads right shoulder, which slued the airplane into a drainage ditch. It contacted a barbed wire fence and several other trees, and then nosed over. Ground witnesses reported observing sparks emanating from the cowl area as the airplane descended toward the road. Gross external visual assessment of the engine disclosed a large hole in the engine case on each side of the upper spine between the numbers 1 and 2 cylinders and a quantity of oil on the fuselage from the firewall aft to the tail.